John R. Graham is a financial, economic, and policy analyst in the health sector. His appointments include:
Senior Fellow of The National Center for Policy Analysis;
Senior Fellow of The Independent Institute;
Senior Fellow of the Pacific Research Institute;
Senior Fellow of The Fraser Institute;
Adjunct Scholar of The Mackinac Center for Public Policy;
Columnist at Forbes.com's The Apothecary blog;
Member of the Board of Visitors of The Benjamin Rush Society of medical students and physicians.

New Poll: Only One-Third Of Americans Support Repealing, Defunding Or Delaying Obamacare

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 13: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) holds a news conference to announce their plan to defund the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, at the U.S. Capitol March 13, 2013 in Washington, DC. Although Cruz and his fellow sponsors expect the legislation to fail, they believe it is an important survey of who supports health care reform. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Polls consistently show that Americans aren’t happy with Obamacare. They think the law will make health care more expensive, and decrease its quality. But a new survey of 1,976 registered voters finds that only 33 percent believe that the health law should be repealed, delayed, or defunded. 29 percent believe that “Congress should make changes to improve the law,” 26 percent believe that “Congress should let the law take effect” and see what happens, and 12 percent believe that the law should be expanded. The bottom line? Voters are skeptical that Obamacare will live up to Democrats’ hype. But they also believe that it should be given a chance to succeed.

The new poll was conducted by the Morning Consult, a healthcare media company founded by Michael Ramlet. Ramlet, in evaluating the results of his survey, finds that voters are “unmoved by three months of the defund argument,” and that a majority would “blame congressional Republicans a lot for a government shutdown.”

Americans oppose risking a government shutdown

Here are the numbers. 26 percent of the respondents identified as Republicans, compared to 42 percent Democrats and 31 percent independents. (This compares to a spread of 22 R / 31 D / 45 I in the most recent Gallup tracking poll.)

Ramlet asked: “If your Member of Congress supports efforts to defund the 2010 healthcare law, and the efforts lead to a government shutdown, would that make you more likely, or less likely, to vote for this legislator in the next election?” 42 percent of voters said “less likely,” 30 percent said “more likely,” and 28 percent said “no difference.” Among independents, the breakdown was 44-28-28, respectively; among whites, it was 41-32-27; among Hispanics, 46-34-21.

Voters would blame “Republicans in Congress if the current budget dispute leads to a government shutdown starting October 1.” 51 percent would blame them “a lot,” 21 percent “some,” and 17 percent “a little.” Only 12 percent would assign no blame to Republicans. But voters would also blame President Obama for a shutdown, albeit by slimmer margins: 41 percent “a lot,” 15 percent “some,” and 18 percent “a little.” For Congressional Democrats, the numbers were 36 percent “a lot,” 24 percent “some,” and 23 percent “a little.”

Most polls show that voters disapprove of the 2010 health care law by significant margins. The Morning Consult’s poll did not. 46 percent of voters strongly or somewhat disapproved of “the health care legislation passed by Barack Obama and Congress in 2010,” whereas 48 percent somewhat or strongly approved. (The disapproval was more heartfelt; 32 percent strongly disapproved, whereas only 21 percent strongly approved.)

On the other hand, voters are deeply skeptical of the law’s promises to make health care more affordable. 57 percent believe that it will make health care “much more” or “somewhat more” expensive, whereas only 15 percent believe it will make health care “much less” or “somewhat less” expensive. 37 percent believe that the law will negatively affect the “availability of medical benefits,” whereas 23 percent believe it will improve access. 37 percent believe that the law will negatively affect “the quality of the medical care you receive,” whereas 20 percent believe it will improve it.

Two-thirds of voters want to give the law a chance to succeed

While voters are skeptical that the law will benefit them, they don’t agree with conservatives who say that it represents an existential threat to America. Only 26 percent of voters believe that “Congress should repeal the law,” and only 7 percent believe that “Congress should delay and defund the law.”

On the other hand, 29 percent believe that “Congress should make changes to improve the law.” 26 percent believe that “Congress should let the law take effect.” And 12 percent believe that “Congress should expand the law.”

33 percent of voters overall support repealing, defunding or delaying Obamacare. 65 percent of Republicans feel that way, compared to 37 percent of independents and 10 percent of Democrats. 18 percent of Hispanics support repeal, defund, or delay. Americans over the age of 65 are most strongly opposed to the law, with younger voters most supportive.

Have anti-Obamacare activists misread the public?

As you go through the Morning Consult report, this general attitude becomes clear. The public is deeply skeptical that Obamacare will make their lives better. Indeed, they largely believe that it will make health care more costly and less efficient. But they don’t view the law in the apocalyptic terms that many conservatives do. “The American people overwhelmingly reject Obamacare,” says Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. That may be, but neither do they support shutting down the government in order to repeal it.

Ted Cruz believes that Obamacare must be stopped now, because if it isn’t, the law just might become popular. But the irony is that Cruz may have it exactly wrong. If the public is right, that Obamacare will make health care worse rather than better, the law may become less popular over time. Either way, what the public wants above all else is for Republicans to propose legislation that will make the health care system better.

During Sen. Cruz’s 21-hour marathon speech on the Senate floor, he rightly cited many of the flaws and problems with our new health care law. But notably missing from his remarks was any attempt to address the real problems with our health care system, problems that conservative activists have neglected for 70-odd years. If Sen. Cruz cares about the sentiments of the American people as much as he says he does, he would be well served to consider that fact.

UPDATE 1: The American Action Forum has published an Obamacare poll surveying voters in 18 competitive congressional districts. Their take:

There is support across the political spectrum for delaying the individual mandate one year and using the government funding bill to implement the delay. Additionally, the survey found that by a 5-point margin, respondents support using every opportunity to defund or delay the ACA rather than simply passing a “clean” bill to fund the government.

Fully 56 percent of respondents support the individual mandate delay in the context of a continuing resolution debate, including 55 percent of independents, and 52 percent overall in “swing districts.” The survey also found that strong majorities across the spectrum oppose the Affordable Care Act, including 60 percent of independents, and a majority in “swing districts.”

The poll, conducted by Wes Anderson of On Message Inc on September 25th-26th, used a sample of 1200 likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.82 percent. The survey was conducted of voters in 18 congressional districts across the U.S.. To gain an understanding of different parts of the population, the survey was broken into three different groups: those in conservative districts (R+6 – R+10 PVI), districts that lean Democratic (D+1 – D+3 PVI), and swing districts (R+1 to D+1 PVI).

In response to these new polling numbers, American Action Forum President Doug Holtz-Eakin said, “On policy, the verdict is in. Among voters across the spectrum, Obamacare is unpopular and the funding bill is an appropriate place to fight for government reforms. They will support efforts to keep the government open and make changes to Obamacare.”

UPDATE 2: Quinnipiac is out with a poll showing that while voters oppose Obamacare 47-45, 72 percent oppose shutting down the government to defund the law, compared to 22 percent who support it.

INVESTORS’ NOTE: Aetna (NYSE:AET), UnitedHealth (NYSE:UNH), WellPoint (NYSE:WLP), Molina (NYSE:MOH), and Humana (NYSE:HUM) are leading players in developing products for health insurance exchanges. Public exchanges, set to open on October 1, are a key feature of Obamacare’s efforts to expand health insurance coverage.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

At this point one has to wonder about the political calculations the GOP is making. Does not make sense to risk alienating more voters unless not acting might push even more voters away from the GOP. My own guess is that despite the imperfections, GOP is very afraid that Obamacare will work or work well enough that the issue will be more dead than alive for the 2014 elections.

Really? Providers are as private as before, insurers are as private as before – where is the takeover?

I’d suggest you look at conservative healthcare initiatives (Heritage, gop sponsored bills) going back to 1989, but you’d be as unlikely to look into that as you have with the ACA. http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004182

“Providers are as private as before, insurers are as private as before – where is the takeover?”

What a curious thing to say. The takeover is ACA itself. The 2,000 pages of legislation; the 20,000 pages of regulations; the government rules that define in excruciating detail what providers and insurers must do, right down to the type size on documents. That may not be taking over in a corporate sense, but it’s certainly a taking of full control. You won’t find a hospital or insurance exec, or a physician, who will tell you with a straight face that today they have as much independence from government control as they had in 2009.

Now – according to the source you linked, in 2008 Barack Obama stated that he opposed having the government force every individual to buy insurance. He said that he opposed such a mandate because he did not think the problem is that people don’t want health insurance, it’s that they can’t afford it. So, he said, he was focused more on lowering costs.

So now we have the flip-flop that Obama is actually insisting on the mandate.

Obamacare’s individual mandate is the very point that Obama is refusing to negotiate. The partial government shutdown results from the frozen Democrat position vs. the frozen Republican position (which is also a flip-flop, from the Republican position on the individual mandate in 2007).

What does any of this history of political flip-flopping tell us? Mainly, I think, that it’s wiser to ignore what politicians say to get votes.

And, by the way, isn’t it ironic that as a matter of fact Obamacare turns out to have almost everything to do with insurance, and almost nothing to do with lowering the cost of medical care? Most expert analysts including the CBO and the actuaries at Medicare and Medicaid predict Obamacare will increase future medical costs.

Sadly, somewhere along the way, Obama forgot that he had it right in 2008 – the basic problem is the cost of medical care. The cost of insurance is a symptom of that basic problem. Who keeps a physician who treats symptoms and ignores the disease?

Let’s also note that pollster/consultant Michael Ramlet has done or does work “for major hospital chains and Fortune 500 healthcare clients” who are also part of the health care / Obamacare industrial complex. Consultants like him will get PAID alot for years to come to try and straighten the Obamacare mess/fiasco….

I took another poll online yesterday that had almost 89 % of the survey wanting to kill Obamacare and was over 100,000 people…. I guess if you want to spread false facts you can create your own survey results….